THE GOSPELS
PREPARATION FOR LESSON 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE GOSPELS
In preparation for this lesson, take a quick glance at the general contents of all four gospels. What is your first reaction? Do you see similarities? Differences? Write down your observations.
The lesson is divided into four sections:
Literary Character
Status in the Church
Unity
Variety
Goals and Objectives of Lesson 1
GOALS
In this lesson, we would like to accomplish the following:
1. We hope you will become excited about studying the four gospels.
2. We hope that you will learn the basic facts regarding the character of the four gospels and their place in the Church.
3. We hope you make some changes in your life as a response to the teachings of this lesson.
OBJECTIVES
When you have done the following, it will show that the goals are met:
1. Use all the resources and complete all the written assignments of the lesson, expressing your own thoughts and attitudes regarding the four gospels.
2. Obtain a satisfactory grade on the test, demonstrating that you can identify major information about the literary character of the four gospels, their acceptance by the Church, and their similarities and differences.
3. Answer the application questions in the study guides, showing how you apply the teachings of the lesson to your own life.
"Instructions for Lesson 1"
Carefully read the "Instructions for Lesson 1." You may want to print them out so that you can refer to them as you proceed through the assignments.
If you are new at doing Third Millennium lessons, read the "General Instructions for Assignments."
Note about Greek and Hebrew
Once in a while, the lectures of this course include words in Greek or Hebrew. Don't worry about this, because a knowledge of these languages is not necessary for the course. Furthermore, when a Greek or Hebrew word is used in a study guide, glossary, or quiz, it will be transliterated (using English letters). However, it may be helpful to at least look at the alphabet of these biblical languages and learn something about the way they are transliterated. If you are interested, you may look at the following resources:
For Greek, see the following PDF document:
Greek AlphabetFor Hebrew, you may look at the following web site called "Judaism 101"
http://www.jewfaq.org/alephbet.htm
Glossary
Each lesson has a glossary of terms and names used in the lesson. You can find it in the "Resources" section of the lesson.